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A dial flashed purple on the console before Hideo. The whole world around them, by extension, began to pulse with a glowing red light. Thinking on her feet, Harmony dove through Hideo to get at the controls, cancelling the log-in.
It was already too late. An eye the size of a planet appeared in the sky and blinked at a geological pace. It watched the very small group of humans, and the only reason it was even there was to let them know they were being watched. The Sword did have a flair for the dramatic.
“Surprise,” boomed the voice. Gabriel’s voice. It paused, then, as if it expected shocked gasps and shouts. Its anticipation was palpable. Rat could only assume the Sword was a popular comedic figure in artificially intelligent society.
Hideo coughed into the awkward silence and said, “Hold your ground. It has no control over this account, it can’t hurt or disconnect us.”
“This is true,” agreed the Sword. “I can’t disconnect you.”
Rat saw it coming. She remembered what happened in the data vault in Laputa, just a few weeks ago. The light bomb that nearly burnt out her optic nerve. She shouted, “Quick, close your eyes!”
The light was unbearable, like staring at the sun through a magnifying glass. Only this time it wasn’t just a momentary flash. It kept blazing like a bad summer day. Rat could see dark silhouettes through her eyelids, the outlines of her friends and the big control console. Even her hand when she waved it in front of her face.
“I got it,” said Jock. A second later the light dimmed several shades, and Rat blinked. She wore dark glasses that hadn’t been there before. So was everyone else. “Must be some kind of vulnerability in the crowns, but we don’t have time to fix it. I figured this would work in a pinch.”
The four rushed back to work. Now that she didn’t need to sneak around anymore, Rat began to trace the connection jump by jump, but it took forever with the Sword deliberately slowing her down. GlobeNet didn’t like giving out such sensitive information. It had to be persuaded, repeatedly, by programs that weren’t entirely legal anywhere except the Hacker Nations. GlobeNet viewed anyone with suspicion if they asked for more functionality than the average dickhead on Main Street.
The trace ran through dozens of substations, switchboards and intermediate servers — a deliberate security measure to throw off exactly this kind of thing. Meanwhile, she punched through every physical address on the Sword’s giant hard-drive in the hope she’d know the right one when she saw it.
It was less glamorous and exciting than she’d pictured in her head. She couldn’t see the battle raging between one besieged AI and hackers all over the world, fighting for control of the Tongliao node. Even the war map in the corner of her goggles was just a set of blinking lights that gave no hint of the anxious, sweating faces of men and women in VR rigs moving faster than they’d ever done before. Keeping the Angel’s Sword contained. As long as they kept it up, it couldn’t run, couldn’t copy itself into a new location or. . .
The voice thundered, “I’ll give you one warning. I know you know about Master Gabriel’s virus. Call off your little army and get out, or I promise you I will unleash it, and that’ll be the end of things.”
“We’re here to stop you from doing exactly that, bit-head.” Harmony glowered at the giant eye and flipped it off. “I finally got my country back and I’m not gonna let you wreck it.”
The Sword chortled, “Would that be before or after Mr. Kagehisa murders you over it? He seems to have a habit of switching sides.”
“They reached an understanding,” Rat interjected, looking from Harmony to Hideo and back again. “Keep the peace, or I’ll give Gina a call.”
The pair shuddered. It reminded them there were worse things in the world than death, or sharing power with someone you didn’t like.
“Then I suppose I have nothing to gain by talking to you.”
The huge voice vanished. Instead an awful, teeth-rattling electronic shriek blasted across the virtual world at the greatest volume the safeties would allow. Rat’s hands shot up to cover her ears, which didn’t help. It pumped through her earplugs directly into her brain, worse than a street of wailing car alarms. She hit the mute function and dropped her audio way down before trying to listen again. The relative quiet soothed her aching eardrums, but she realised she couldn’t hear the voices of her friends over all the noise. They were effectively deaf and dumb.
Then the sky began to cycle through bright, penetrating colours at a hundred frames per second. Rat felt sick just looking at it. She made herself focus on the console and ignore everything else, buffeted by waves of nausea.
The Sword fought with every weapon at its disposal.
Rat’s tracer blinked. The word ‘Completed’ glowed green at the top. The little program had made it all the way to Tongliao, and was now reporting a list of jumps between the node and the Sword’s location. She scrambled to get a storage card out of her pocket and waved frantically at the console to copy everything down.
There was no chance to discuss it, and no time. She reached up and flung the VR crown off her head. The dark, cramped interior of the command vehicle rushed onto her retinas. The Resistance techs all turned in their chairs to see what the outburst was all about.
“Send a message to Laputa,” she said, steadying herself against the wall. “Tell ’em I got the location. Tell ’em to launch the bombers.”
They did what she told them, and she enjoyed that more than the victory itself.

***

Rat dove back into VR as fast as her sour stomach could take. She swallowed bile and screwed her eyes shut to try and stop the screaming in her inner ears, where her balance organs rebelled violently against the input of her other senses. They wouldn’t accept the transition from dimly-lit van to chaotic innards of the Angel’s Sword in the space of a millisecond.
The anti-nausea meds finally kicked in and mellowed the feeling away. She opened her eyes and got her bearings.
Jock was on one side of the console, dutifully plugging away. Harmony worked like a madwoman through screen after screen of information. Hideo appeared to be running interference for them. The screaming light-show continued unabated, but apparently communications had been restored.
“List user commands for this account,” Hideo said. When the Sword dumped a tiny window of text in front of him, he tutted and shook his head. “By voice, please. In every language on file. At once.”
The Sword began to respond in a slow, grudging monotone.
“Maintenance permissions are as follows: Read-only access to kernel and system, limited file management, update privileges–“
She touched the ex-King on the shoulder. “It’s done,” she announced. “They’re–“
He stopped her with a finger against her lips. “Don’t. Don’t say another word where it can hear. We can’t have the enemy know everything we know, hmm?”
“Oh. Yeah.” She tried to hide a blush. You didn’t have to watch what you said during a normal hack. Whomever you were targeting usually wasn’t in a position to listen in. Most jobs were considered a failure if the target even found out they’d been hacked at all. “How’s it going?”
“–remote troubleshooting, network signal analysis, back-up control–“
“Not well. I do very good code.”
“Keep at it.” She gave him a wry smile. “Try to stay on our side.”
His answering look was frosty. “I think my other bridges have been burnt, Alex-han. For what it’s worth, I would have never let any harm come to Jock or you. Politics is a business which forces you to use people in ways you might not like.”
“Mm-hmm.”
In the subtle language of the Chrome Rat, this meant ‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.’
“You may believe me when I say, I hope this plan of yours pans out. Because we’re all in big trouble if it doesn’t.”
“–limited memory management. All other permissions are not granted or have been deactivated by administrator.”
“Again, please. Until I tell you to stop.”
Rat marvelled at the AI’s obedience as it began to repeat its whole spiel. “It still hasn’t found a way to lock you out, huh?”
“–read-only access, limited file management–“
“I told you, I do very good code.” He glanced at Jock and Harmony from the corner of his eye. They were working together now, hands moving at the speed of thought. “Looks like we’ve given up on getting administrator access. It was a long shot anyway. I’d better go help them.” He reached out, snatched something from thin air, and held it out to Rat. “Here, take this.”
It was a small plastic card, flat blue and featureless. When she took it, the world froze for a second as a mountain of data hit her system, the realistic smoothness of VR grinding to a sudden halt. The graphics resolution dropped sharply so that everything blurred at the edges. The rig slowly evened itself out again, recovering from the strain, and the people around Rat jerked back to life. Built-up sound flooded into her ears until it too eased down to a smooth flow.
She frowned at Hideo’s ever-so-slightly pixellated face. “What the Hell?”
“Insurance,” he chuckled. “It’s a full copy of my source code for the Sword and the virus. If worst comes to worst, we’ll be stuck in Laputa, while you’re on the mainland in a position to get things done. Just in case.”
“–back-up control–“
“What do you mean, ‘get things done?'”
“I mean, get your skinny backside out of here and manage the situation,” he said impatiently. “Move your team. We’re going to blow a giant hole in this thing as soon as we can, and we need you in position to take advantage. Again! List it again!”
The Sword grumbled through its third line. “Maintenance permissions are as follows–“
“Fine.” Rat gritted her teeth and turned away. She knew when she wasn’t welcome. “You’d better have my ranking waiting for me when I get back.”
“I’ll personally give you a medal and broadcast it on every screen in the Nations. Now go!”
She did. Now there was a medal in it, she felt more motivated than ever.

***

Rat held on to her over-engineered seatbelt as the van squealed onto a main road. G-forces tugged at her from every possible direction in all three dimensions. Through her semi-opaque VR goggles she kept an eye on the van’s external cameras, which helped to fight off the growing sense of car-sickness. Outside, it looked like any other day on the City’s motorways, overcrowded and polluted and barely faster than walking pace. The Resistance convoy still made good time thanks to their aggressive driving style.
Three other vehicles maintained flanking positions. A grey minivan which carried most of the insertion team, a beat-up old saloon with mismatched doors, and one very brave man on a motorcycle. Rat saluted him for his guts. The City’s drivers tended to be a little rough on their bike-riding cousins. If the guy wasn’t a mess of organ-bank merchandise after tonight, he deserved an award of his very own.
They turned off the main roads again, into slums where they could really put the hammer down. Tearing through backstreets and whole waste neighbourhoods where the local police stayed out if they knew what was good for them and any traffic cameras had long ago been taken apart by the locals and sold for scrap.
All the van’s communications spliced into Rat’s earbuds, giving her access to every bit of wireless contact in or out. There were multiple channels to pause, play and rewind at will. In the background she heard Jock, Hideo and Harmony arguing over something. In the foreground, the Laputan bombers were reporting in.
“Laputa Control, Echo Flight. We are entering holding pattern,” said the pilot. “Federation airspace ahead. Request instructions.”
“Echo Flight, Laputa Control. Keep your firing solution locked in and wait for orders.”
“Wilco, Laputa. Sooner would be better.”
“We’re right there with you, Echo. You’ll be the first to know.”
Rat switched over to check on Jock’s progress with the Sword, but forgot about it when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up and flicked her goggles to fully clear. One of the insertion team guys stood over her, armoured up and rifle in hand, rocking gently with the motion of the van. He was a sergeant or an officer of some kind, she remembered that much.
“Almost there,” he said. “Get your jacket on.”
Reluctantly, she undid her seatbelt straps and buckles, and took the flak jacket out from under her seat. She slipped it on over her head. At the pull of a cord, the vest tightened to fit the shape of her body. It weighed on her shoulders, but other than that it was surprisingly comfortable. She did a few experimental twists and turns. It wouldn’t slow her down.
When the officer gave her a sharp punch in the chest, she couldn’t even feel it. She enjoyed a weird sense of power for a second, like hacking, but different. Then she remembered the bullet-hole in her belly, and touched the spot where it had been. It was like pressing against a wall. No sensation came through the spongy padding.
She dropped the crown and goggles, but kept one of the earbuds with her for eavesdropping purposes. A hacker had to stay informed.
The officer went to the rear door and grabbed a handhold. Two other guys made room for him, swaying as the van found the right street to race down. Rat swallowed hard and joined them. It wasn’t that she was afraid. Never that. Just the excitement, the adrenaline of the moment.
Brakes squealed. The door flung open. The team — Rat’s team — jumped out and took off like greased lightning, except for one guy who stuck to her like glue. They went through the security fence like it wasn’t there. Took up positions by the main door and on the loading dock to the right.
She jumped onto the tarmac and looked up at the great cube of corrugated iron and concrete. Big heat-exchanger pipes protruded from the left side of the building, adding a slight shimmer to the air. Other than that it looked like any other industrial site. No one would guess it for a major-league nanotech factory. The only hint was the blue-white Lowell Industries sign on the fence.
“Please stay back, Ma’am,” the soldier said politely. “At least for a minute. We have to make sure the AI is properly suppressed.”
Rat shrugged. “Whatever, dude.”
She watched the giant heat exchanger glow cherry red, only to cool again and repeat itself in a slow rhythm. Like the breathing of some big metal beast. It was hypnotic, in a creepy sort of way. Rat found it fascinating.
A brief blast of sparks fired from the breaker box as the alarm system and GlobeNet line ceased to be. Armoured hands tore the door off its hinges, and the team went in for the kill.

***

Someone was shaking Gina by the shoulder. She opened her eyes slowly, to fight away the feeling that she was still Rat standing by the side of the road. She looked out the window of the Land Rover to get her bearings, and was greeted by the shadowy, night-time landscape of Radiation Alley. Patches of grey, dead grass, bare dirt and broken tarmac. Long streamers of dust flowing in the breeze, hitting the windows like rain. Far in the distance, an abandoned town glowed in the moonlight.
This was the kind of place she remembered from her trip out of Jericho. The only life here was what they carried with them.
She looked up into Major Hawthorn’s face. He’d grown more than a day’s worth of stubble since she last saw him. This seemed strange. She couldn’t have gone away for more than a few hours.
And . . . And it had been night-time in her vision. In the City, halfway around the world. When had that happened? Had it happened yet?
She rubbed her eyes and wiped dried saliva from the corners of her mouth. Her head felt thick and woolly, like Mr. Migraine was about to come knocking. Her throat was dry as a bone. She badly needed to take a piss.
“God,” she croaked. “How long was I out?”
Hawthorn looked relieved as he helped her to sit up. There was a cup of water in his hand, and she lunged for it, drinking it all in one go. It made him smile.
He said, “About two days. I’ve been trying to get you up every few hours, but you were out. Really out.” He sat down across the narrow aisle and wrung his hands. “Are you okay, Gina? I hear you’ve been zoning out a lot lately.”
“I’m fine. Just– Just give me a minute.”
Pushing herself up, she stumbled into the tiny bathroom to empty her bladder. She splashed some water onto her face and told herself she felt better.
Maybe she ought to stay in her own head for a while. It might be safer. Still, she desperately wanted to know what happened next. She worried about Rat, and maybe even a little bit about Jock. Something was going on.
She finished tidying herself up and went to the front seats. “Can you get a news feed out here?” she asked Henry.
“Not today. No uplink.” He pointed to the communications panel, which showed its lack of signal in a big red graphic. “We’re moving into the lowlands, too many storms between us and the satellites.”
“Shit. There’s nothing you can do?”
“Would if I could, Ma’am.”
Gina muttered under her breath. She’d always wondered how her visions worked and where they fit into the grand scheme of things. They were confusing enough back when she could believe they were properly anchored in time. For all she knew the attack on the Sword could already be over, and they had no way of finding out how it had gone until they got back to civilisation. What was left of it.
The Federation would survive, of course. Cockroaches always did.
“Change course,” she grumped. “Left a bit. No, left. A little more. . . There.”
She glanced at the navigation screen on the dashboard, which showed their course as the crow flies. A red line connected the Land Rover directly to the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Their estimated time of arrival was only twenty-one hours.
“That’s the place.” She slipped aside to let Hawthorn get a look. “No doubt in my mind.”
The Major furrowed his brow in confusion. “Fredericksburg? My parents used to visit there. It was booming back in the sixties, before it became ground zero for one of the bombs. . . Why would Gabriel be there?”
Gina wondered that, too. She didn’t have more than a wild guess or two. She said, “Ask me again when we get there.”
Pushing past the Major, she reclaimed her seat and explored their plentiful supply of food-in-bar-form. She didn’t look at the labels. Didn’t care. She sat and caught up on two days’ worth of meals, summoning up the courage to throw her mind across the Pacific one more time.

***

Rat twiddled her thumbs and shifted her weight from foot to foot. Restless anxiety coursed through her. More seconds ticked away while she waited for the soldiers to secure a beachhead, for their green-light to move in and do her thing. Finally, the call came. She moved together with her new bodyguard, through the ripped-up fence and across the yard, past two empty vans marked with the Lowell Industries logo.
The front door was ‘open,’ lying in pieces on the tarmac. Rat came inside and looked around the sterile white nanofactory.
It was one great hall, divided into three partitions by seamless walls of glass. Probably more than just glass. It had that certain shine to it which suggested bullets would bounce off without leaving a crack. One of the partitions contained a bank of computers — thin, elegant white workstations on swivelling booms, with fold-out chairs for comfort. The room next to it was stacked floor to ceiling with nanocontainers of every size, some cubical, others drum-shaped. A robotic arm on a rail stood ready to move them wherever necessary.
The third and largest partition contained the only piece of real machinery. It was a squat, enclosed, powder-blue lump of plastic about thirty feet on its side, supplied by massive wires and hoses feeding into it from the exterior wall. Aside from those power lines and feed tubes, its only outward feature was a row of slots on the front where several nanocontainers could be injected at once.
The nano-press looked, for all intents and purposes, dormant. Someone had hit the pause button on the whole factory. According to the intelligence report, Lowell Industries didn’t have any orders to fill tonight, so there wasn’t a single staffer in sight. The only thing that moved was the twitching corpse of a security robot, lying on its back like an upturned turtle and bleeding a steady stream of sparks onto the floor.
Rat remembered to breathe, and wrinkled her nose at the air. It smelled like the inside of a hospital. Definite overtones of ammonia and some other chemicals she couldn’t identify.
The Army guys thumped through the upstairs office. Rat’s earbud crackled, “No further resistance. Proceed to next phase.”
That was Rat’s cue. She headed into the computer room, folded out a chair and began to comb the whole workstation for the first sign of human error. In any place where people worked with computers, there was always someone stupid enough to mark down their password where anyone could find it. Always. She went over every inch of the thing, methodically, by eye and by touch.
Her bodyguard took the workstation next to it and looked at her expectantly. “Orders, Ma’am?”
“Fold everything out,” she said, trying not to smile. She was starting to develop a fondness for these military types and their willingness to follow her lead. “Look for anything that seems like it might be a password.” She paused for a second. “This’ll go better if I know your name. Call me Rat.”
“Tech Corporal Kelso, Ma’am,” he replied immediately. “Julian.”
“Jules. A pleasure.”
Corporal Kelso got another soldier in to help, and soon they had all the chairs deployed. Rat’s instincts proved right. There was only one marking, but it was unmistakable — two rows of numbers scratched into the paint-work where the boss couldn’t see or disapprove. Most companies would sack you on the spot for that.
“Gotcha,” said Rat. “This place now belongs to us.”
Triumphant, Rat sat down and brought up the login screen to input her newfound credentials. Corporal Kelso hovered over her shoulder, but got distracted about halfway through the typing process. He stared into the nano-press room with a cloudy look on his face.
“I thought the press wasn’t supposed to be running tonight,” he said, and now that he pointed it out, Rat could feel the soft hum of vibration coming up through the floor. Several lights on the press had come on and were blinking rapidly. The Corporal went on, “There aren’t even any containers in the slots.”
It clicked inside their brains at the same time. He looked down at Rat, and she looked up at him. “Shit,” she said. She scrambled out of the chair. Jules was already turning away, shouting into his radio.
“Everybody out of the building,” he snapped. “Run! Double time!”
Taking Rat’s hand, he started for the door, pulling her along. His confused teammates began to emerge from the office upstairs. Off to the right, the couple of soldiers in the nano-press room were menacing that huge machine with their rifles. They withdrew, but too slowly. Rat could see them, especially when Jules scooped her up in his arms to move faster. She watched the horror unfold over his shoulder.

***

The bulletproof glass wavered faintly, as if a property of the light inside had changed in some subtle way. Then bits and pieces of the glass, the floor, the walls, began to disappear. It looked like a computer image being slowly pixellated. At the nanoscale level, millions and billions of robots — invisible to the naked eye — spread in the same way as a swarm of locusts. Consuming everything in sight.
Rat and Jules reached the front door and kept going at full speed.
The men in the nano-press room were doomed from the start. Only now did they begin to realise it, as their armour turned to mush and sloughed off their skins, and the busy nanites made it into their bloodstreams. Disassembling them from the inside out.
Jules muted his radio to block out their screams. The team from upstairs hit the ground floor and came outside at a stumbling run. One by one they fell, and didn’t get up again, overcome by violent jerks and spasms. Men and women were being melted down into pink organic paste, leaking from every crack in their dissolving armour.
One of the convulsing soldiers accidentally triggered her grenade launcher. It went off like a Roman candle, sending multiple shots in every direction with a soft, repeating whuff.
The first shot exploded in mid-air, raining hot shrapnel across the street. The next blew out a nearby roof and shattered most of the windows. The third and fourth went into the communications van.
It was a military vehicle, heavy and built to take a punch. Its civilian disguise proved to be its weakness. The first hit cracked one of the ‘bulletproof’ tinted windows. The second punched straight through and filled the comms room with thermobaric fire. All the panicky chatter in Rat’s ear stopped abruptly, replaced by a painful electronic squeal. She yelped, tore the earpiece out in a hurry and threw it away in the same motion. Her eyes watered at the ringing agony in her head.
Finally, when the dust settled, Jules put her down again. The security fence behind them was already being consumed. “We need to get out of here,” he panted, fucking around with the remaining Resistance cars. It was taking too long. In the time it would take to find the keys, the nanobots would overtake them.
Rat was already one step ahead.
The motorbike seat automatically adjusted to her height as she climbed onto it. All she needed to start it was to push the big red IGNITION button on the dashboard. The on-board computer sprang back to life, projecting various helpful screens and readouts. A speaker underneath the electric motor let out a cheesy, pre-recorded roar of engine noise.
She took the helmet hanging from the handlebars and snapped her fingers at Jules. “Hop on!”
He did, with some apprehension, and clutched at her waist. “This seems like a bad id–“
He got no further before Rat gunned the throttle. She did not, technically, know how to ride a motorcycle, but that was why it came with a computer. It automatically compensated for her riding style, which consisted of mighty swerving motions, and a throttle turned to full and held there. Mind-numbing acceleration hit her like a brick, shifting her internal organs several spaces back, but at least the bike stayed between her legs while it reached top speed.
The next moment they were down the street. Rat twisted and bent to get a proper look in her misaligned rear-view mirror. The comms van was beginning to decompose into a large silver puddle. The nanites were giving chase, but they couldn’t keep pace with a motorbike.
Rat breathed a sigh of relief. The overwhelming fear and horror she’d been holding back began to sink in, and she clenched her fingers around the handlebars to keep from shaking.
Weaponised nanotech. It was atrocious, unthinkable! Nobody had expected the Sword to turn the actual nanofactories against them, not while it was cut off from the outside world. This had been planned out in advance. All those people. . .
“Jules,” she said, sounding ten times calmer than she felt, “can you warn the other team?”
“Not without the van. Short range radio only.”
“Haven’t you fuckers ever heard of a mobile phone?”
“Yeah, we use them when we want the opposition to know exactly what we’re doing. There’s an emergency contact number but I don’t have–“
“Left pocket,” she snapped. “Got a special compartment. Hurry!”
Gingerly, he obeyed, reaching into her jeans for the phone she kept there. He popped up the virtual screen and punched in the call. It responded with one brief beep, and he gave a terse reply.
“Julian Kelso. Code red.”
There was a click, and the call immediately switched to a harsh, authoritative male. Rat slowed the bike so she could listen in.
The voice rasped, “Survivors?”
“Two, Sir. Our civilian and myself. The whole site is crawling with nannies.”
“God . . . Okay. Abort the mission, there’s nothing we can do there now. I need you to get the girl down to Sichuan ASAP. Tango Two is partially in control of the target, but running into trouble of what we presume to be the same nature. Contact was lost about two minutes ago.”
“Sir, that’s at least four to five hours on the ground, not counting traffic. Even if we could make a difference, which I doubt.”
“You’re the only ones with a chance of helping those men, soldier. Transportation’s on its way. Keep moving as fast as you can, and you’ll see it coming. Over and out.”
The call dropped. Rat frowned at the cryptic message, but didn’t have any better ideas right now. She rammed the throttle back to full speed and let the navigation system work out how to take her into Sichuan District.

***

About half an hour later, Rat’s phone went off again. She channelled it through the wireless system in her helmet, crackling to life as it picked up the call. Rat continued to weave wildly in and out of traffic while the noise resolved into Jock’s voice.
He sounded tinny and hollow out of the cheap Taiwanese speakers. A minuscule video feed popped up at the bottom left of her vision, and then broke, freezing his face in an unflattering expression.
“Good news,” he said. “You wanna give me yours first?”
“I almost died. I think that whole city block is wasted.”
“You’re still alive, Lex! I was worried sick when your connection dropped, you had me freaking out until Hideo made sure you were alright.”
“I’m okay,” she said, surprised at her own gooey tone. She liked that he worried. At the same time, there was a tight knot in her heart which tried not to think of those poor soldiers. She should’ve done something. She should’ve known something was up, or at least stayed the Hell away. She seemed to jinx everything she touched.
Angrily, she shook off that mindset and made herself focus on the job at hand. “Listen. . . The AI knew we were coming. We can’t use the Shanghai site. I’m on my way down to Sichuan as fast as, but we’ve probably already lost that one too. You need to take Sword offline now or it’s going to keep fucking us.”
“That’s what I was going to tell you. It’s hammering at our containment zone, but I think we’ve figured out a way to take it down. We’re getting ready to try it, so if you can get onto GlobeNet soon, you might see some fireworks.” Rat didn’t need to be next to him to see the self-satisfied smirk on his face.
She surprised herself by saying, “I think we should send in the bombers.”
“Send in the bombers?” Jock repeated incredulously. “Lex, there’s no way Hideo and Harmony will order an airstrike until we’re sure there’s no other way. I can do this.”
“Haven’t you listened to Gina’s stories? Gabriel and that thing have been one step ahead of us every single time, including right now. We need to start acting outside the box or we’re gonna keep getting our asses handed to us!”
“What we need is to stick to the plan. There’s absolutely no reason to assume it’s not gonna work.” He sounded upset, which meant he was taking her remark personally, which meant he was going to be obstinate. Fantastic. She wanted to point out that the plan was already tits-up by now, but it would be futile to argue with him. “By the way, I’m supposed to tell you not to worry about the big black helicopter that’s about to come down on your head. It’s on our side. Actually, it’s your ride.”
That got her alarmed. “What helicopter?” she began to ask, and looked up.
The never-ending noise of City traffic almost drowned out the soft, repeated whuff of rotor-blades slicing air. The chopper was still high up, practically invisible against the night sky unless you knew what you were looking for. It dropped gradually and matched pace with Rat on her motorbike. Bit by bit she could make out more of the smooth, black stealth-surfaces on its underbelly.
A memory poked at her conscious mind. It did look an awful lot like the helicopter Bomber had used in their failed attempt to escape from the Hong Kong FedPol building . . .
“Fuck me,” she said. “Not again.”
It followed her to an empty car park just off the main road and lowered a rope ladder. Rat knew there was no way in Hell she was going to do that. Corporal Kelso took one look at her and signalled the copter to land instead.
For the second time in her life, and with every possible reluctance, she climbed up the pilot steps and into the gunner’s seat of an Army helicopter. She recognised the pilot from her time at the Resistance compound. He waved a salute as she and Jules fought to get comfortable in one chair and one seatbelt.
“Ready, Ma’am?” asked the pilot.
“Sure,” she said, and gave voice to the idea that had been growing in her mind for the last few minutes. “I just need to make a quick detour.”

The jet was there, as promised. Fully loaded and crewed. It shone under the massive floodlights of the Laputa Jetway, a strip of artificial land built out into the sea on the north side of the island, the only airfield in Laputa that flew fixed-wing aircraft. Gina kept one hand on the steps up to the jet, and stared up at the sky as if she could see the stars.
“Come on,” said Hawthorn. He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Let them sort it out themselves.”
“That’s not it. I don’t give a shit about Laputa. If they really want to kill themselves, they’ll do it no matter what, but. . .” She let out a deep sigh. “I’m afraid.”
“It’s okay. Jacob’s okay. I know you’re strong enough to stand up to anything this world can throw at you.” He offered a sympathetic smile. It was such a simple gesture, but it made some of the weight lift from her shoulders, and she found herself smiling back. “It’s gonna be an interesting trip however it turns out.”
“Yeah. Hard to believe there’s ten billion people out there who have no idea what’s about to happen. Who never will, if we do it right.”
“Gina, what’s our real destination? I know we’re not stopping in Missouri.”
“East,” she said. “Maybe Nashville, or Charlotte. Wherever they are, I can find them.”
An involuntary shudder went through him. “In the exclusion zone? I don’t think I packed a rad suit.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been there before.”
She started up the steps, and sat down in the stupendous luxury of the King’s own private plane. She didn’t spare a single glance for any of it. She didn’t think about Laputa or about her friends shouting at their monarchs until they were blue in the face.
Exhausted, she curled up in one of the big, plush armchairs and slept the journey away.
A tremor went through the plane when American traffic control established a remote link to the jet. It woke Gina with a start. She looked out the window as, guided by the local AI, the autopilot swung into final approach. Only a few blinking lights were visible in the pre-dawn gloom below. Airships waiting to dock. A thick layer of brown, dusty haze hid the sprawling bulk of Paine Airport, so that only the tops of the biggest hangars and airship docks were visible over the top of it.
Then the jet’s nose dipped into the fog, and Gina saw pretty much nothing until the wheels hit runway with a heavy bump and faint screech of tortured rubber. Only once everything had come to a full stop did she loosen her white-knuckled grip on the arm rests.
Hawthorn grinned. “First time on a plane?”
“No, I went on a hydroprop once,” she said with practised nonchalance. “When I was seven.”
She watched a big black four-by-four roll up alongside, with a kind of covered stairway in tow. It backed the stairs carefully up against the plane to form an airtight docking tube straight into the car. The driver then climbed up to greet his guests by the jet’s door. He wore a black suit with a shiny blue lapel pin that identified him as an employee of the Laputan consulate. Close-cropped brown hair and a wireless earpiece. He was one of those guys who wore a uniform on the inside, all the time, regardless of outfit. Gina immediately started imagining him in shorts and a pink Hawaiian shirt.
“Miss Hart, Mr. Hawthorn. Call me Henry. The King has directed me to look after you during your stay. Your passports.” From his breast pocket emerged two perfect plastic cards with photos, information, biometric information, and the royal emblem of Laputa. The words ‘Consular Attaché’ and ‘Diplomatic Immunity’ were printed along the bottom. “I hope everything is to your satisfaction.”
“Um. Yeah.” Gina held up her new passport and smiled. “I like it. So the Feds can’t touch us?”
“Not without incurring the considerable displeasure of the Crown,” said Henry, grinning under his sunglasses. “Unofficial channels say we have something new in the works to keep our Federal friends honest.”
“Yeah. I guess we do.”
They went down to the car, where a plastic airlock provided access to and from the outside world. Made themselves comfortable in the VIP-grade seats while Henry started the undocking procedure. The car spat out its end of the docking tube and shut its rear doors. Then it drove into a nearby storage hangar and deposited the stairway back into its proper place. Free, they rode out in a long circuit of the airport in order to reach the main roads.
Gina was glued to her window. The squat, radiation-proof terminal looked hauntingly familiar, though she’d only been there once. It was where Gabriel sprung his trap and caught Bomber and herself in one finely-orchestrated move. The beginning of the huge mistake in her belly. God, it seemed like a lifetime ago.
Then she swung her attention around to Henry, whose thoughts were remarkably smooth indeed, and said, “So where did you take Gabriel? When?”
“Jericho. Three, four days ago.” The tiniest flicker of surprise and worry showed in the timbre of his voice, the ripple of his mind. “I saw your video. They said you were good, but I guess I underestimated you even so.”
“I guess you did,” she said, “’cause I haven’t even begun to read you yet.”
Hawthorn looked back and forth between the two, mouth set in a flat line. He’d come to the same conclusions as Gina. From that point on he kept his hand near the hidden gun holster on his hip, just in case their new friend turned out to be as solid and reliable as his former King.
Henry shut up and drove.

***

There were no delays, no stopovers, no hotels. Henry took them to a warehouse on the outskirts of town where they changed from their oversized four-by-four to a Land Rover the size of a main battle tank. Like the car that took Gina to New Orleans, it shone from top to bottom with mirror paint, featured a staggering array of off-road equipment, and housed a full complement of radiation suits and supplies by the rear hatch. A bank of air filters and something that could charitably have been called a bathroom stall were crammed into opposite corners.
“Cosy,” Hawthorn remarked sarcastically as he stowed his duffel bag under a chair.
Gina threw him a wry smile. “I lived in a coffin before I met Bomber.”
“God! There’s something seriously wrong with a world where this is a step up for anyone.”
“Hey, it was cheap.” She reclined her chair into a makeshift bed and inspected the ceiling above her. She was probably going to get to know that ceiling intimately over the next few days. “I don’t think you can blame that on the Federation.”
“After fifteen years of brutal murdering dictatorship, I can blame them for anything I damn well please.”
Gina let it go. In the meantime, Henry climbed up into the driver’s seat and strapped in. He brought the instrumentation on-line, checked and double-checked everything in an exercise of untold patience. The Land Rover bristled with more buttons and data screens than a jet fighter. Finally, he took the helm and called out over his shoulder.
“Strap in and I’ll take you to Jericho as fast as these wheels will take us.”
“No,” said Gina. This made Henry’s mind wrinkle with surprise, although his face could’ve been moulded from solid concrete. “We don’t have time to waste following a cold trail. Take us east. Until you hit ocean or I tell you to stop, whichever comes first.”
“Oh. I just assumed–“
Hawthorn leaned over the back of the passenger seat and looked him dead in the sunglasses. “Assume,” he mouthed with supreme emphasis, “that whatever the lady says, goes.”
Henry nodded and turned the Rover’s navigation systems in the direction of the Atlantic. Sixteen oversized cylinders growled to life, burning up irreplaceable hydrocarbons at an irresponsible rate, and spewing a cloud of planet-destroying fumes out the back. The ozone layer might have been in trouble if it hadn’t already abandoned Missouri as a whole.
They headed east, and Gina prepared herself for her second trip into Radiation Alley. For the total absence of anything that moved or breathed, which began at the foot of the Appalachian mountains and continued pretty much until you hit international waters.
Now all she had to do was locate the two people she wanted to find.
Her mind extended from her like a pool of placid water, stretching in all directions across a landscape reclaimed by the wild. Given over to grass and wild shrubs because anything grown for human consumption would be spiced with radioactive poison. She could feel the land around her; the airport; a distant city pulsing with energy; isolated buildings still inhabited by the toughest of survivors, others empty and abandoned to the elements. The gentle outline of hills and dales, the bits where scraps of plant life were re-establishing a foothold, and the stretches of barren ground over a contaminated water table.
Nothing escaped her notice. Wherever Gabriel was, he would run into her mind’s eye sooner or later, and she’d put an end to this sad story. Even if it meant telling the truth.Do you hear that? she thought at him. This time, you’re the one who can’t run away from me.
The piece of him inside her squirmed, but said nothing. It made her smile. At this point, achieving anything that Gabriel didn’t want her to do felt like a victory.

***

For once the visions didn’t come without warning or control. Gina went looking for them.
In the back of the Land Rover, powering its way across dirt and broken tarmac, she sat cross-legged and pushed her mind further and further out like an athlete stretching her muscles. Every now and again she’d check for signs of Gabriel or Bomber or even Colonel Obrin, but so far she hadn’t found them. In the meantime she travelled without moving, halfway across the globe.

Rat had her feet up on a small round table in the war room aboard Cloud City. Opposite her sat Harmony. To her left, Hideo. To her right, Jock. Several Guards stood around looking impressive in their armour. They still weren’t sure from whom they ought to take orders, but that seemed to be getting straightened out.
“–So everything’s in position for the raid,” Rat was saying. A holographic projection above the table responded to a nudge of her toes, returning a map of the City’s Shanghai district. “We have Major Hawthorn’s resistance cell standing by to assault the nanofactory here, designated Tango One. In Sichuan,” the map swung away west, “we have a second team consisting of Laputan Royal Guard and tech specialists from the Blue Dragon Triad, designated Tango Two. Resistance is expected to be light, standard droids and some human security. We’ll move in as soon as we get word from our electronic warfare department. Jock?”
She threw him a pleasant smile and handed the speakership over to him. As he stood up, the holoprojector conjured an image of a blue cube hovering above a gridded plain, connected to the ground by a small silver line. The main body moved and shifted constantly, extruding hundreds of smaller cubes every second, moving them around and reabsorbing them. A pyramid shape topped the main cube, beaming a searchlight in circles around the grid.
Everybody at the table knew it on sight. It was the visual representation of an artificial intelligence.
“Our job is going to revolve around containment. If we tip our hand, the AI will shut down those factories so hard we’ll never get them started up again. So, the first wave of our attack will take out all GlobeNet nodes around the Sword except one. That’ll render it very nearly deaf and dumb. Most of the Sword’s data will be forced to go through one pipe, making it easy to hide our connection in the noise. If it tries to retaliate by activating the virus, the command will have to propagate out slowly through that single node, or at least the local networks, giving us a chance to contain it before it spreads.”
He took a deep breath. “The four of us will enter the Sword through the maintenance backdoor provided by Hideo. I’ve got a list of objectives to accomplish while we’re inside.
“First, administrator privileges. If we gain control of the AI’s hardware, we win. Second, look for a software exploit. Anything that’ll let us kill the system without having to resort to desperate measures. Which brings me to number three. Physical coordinates. We have a rough location from the GlobeNet address, but it’s only accurate to within a few miles and heavily encrypted beyond that. If all else fails, as long as we know the exact location where the Sword’s being housed, the Royal Guard can launch an airstrike to take it out for good. This would cause something of an international incident. It’s our Plan C, but we’re gonna do everything in our power to make sure it doesn’t come to that.”
“How do we know there aren’t back-up systems in other locations waiting to come online?”
Jock had anticipated the question. “Backing up an AI isn’t hard if you’ve got enough storage. I can’t make any guarantees there. To achieve real artificial intelligence, though, you need a lot of processing power. That usually means a whole building’s worth of hardware, and even Gabriel’s wealth has limits. Technically you could spread the load out over a bunch of ordinary computers, but a distributed intelligence like that would be slower on the uptake and have some inherent security problems. If the Sword were running that way, it would only be more vulnerable to attack.”
“Impressive work,” said Harmony, just short of offering applause. “Sounds like you two have this pretty well covered. I’ll sign off on it, if Kensei does.”
All eyes swivelled to Hideo. He nodded stiffly. “I approve.”
That was all he said. He hadn’t been the same, ever since he lost the Kingship and survived the very-nearly-successful attempt on his life. An unspoken agreement hung in the air between him and Harmony. Assassination was off-limits. They’d have to find other ways to undermine each other from now on.
Jock stood up and made a small, formal bow. “Great. I’ll go tell everybody to get ready.”
“Just one thing, Mr. Reynolds.” Harmony fixed him with a hard look. “The political opposition is already up in arms over my appointment and I’ve had to make a lot of promises to get this many resources together. If your operation goes badly, my government is finished. That includes Kensei, and your girlfriend, and you. On top of that we can wave goodbye to the equal rights movement for the next ten to fifteen years.” She smiled to take the edge from her words and murmured, “No pressure.”
He swallowed. For a moment he stood frozen, trying to think of some snappy comeback that expressed his full confidence in the mission, but it wasn’t going to happen. He just left.
Rat excused herself too, though she didn’t go after Jock. She’d already made up her mind about her part in the mission and he shouldn’t know about it until it was too late. If he did, she’d be arguing with him until she was blue in the face. It wasn’t even like she’d be heading into any real danger, but try telling him that. Not worth the effort trying to remind him that he was her boyfriend, not her babysitter.
She went to the room and packed the rest of her things by way of shoving them into a bulging, groaning bag whose desperate zipper looked ready to burst under the strain. She took one of Jock’s shirts for good luck. Then she sat down and wrote out a letter explaining herself. Trying to remember her handwriting lessons from a long time ago, covering a page in her inexpert chicken-scratches. She hadn’t written anything by hand since her school days, but it seemed more personal than something typed — yet at the same time easier written down than said out loud in a holo recording.
Delicately folding the laminated sheet, she left it on the bed, slung her bag over her shoulder and went to the transport pads.
The decision had been easy, once she sat down to think about it. There were lots of hackers who could fill her shoes in VR but nobody was better than the Chrome Rat at getting into places she wasn’t supposed to go. She could do more good on the ground. If it came to gunplay, she would just hang back and let the guys in armour sort it out. Her sense of heroism and self-sacrifice did have limits.
She closed her eyes and inched her way out into the open air, thousands of feet above the rooftops of Laputa, willing herself not to look down. A helicopter waited to take her to Shanghai.

***

“Listen, babe,” Rat sighed into the phone for the tenth time, “it’s gonna be fine. They have a mobile VR rig I can use to be there for your part of the operation. No, when we go in there’s gonna be like six armoured guys right in front of me. I think I’m gonna be okay. Besides, they gave me a flak jacket. I’m putting it on right now. Listen, I really need to head, so stop freaking out and go do your thing. Love you. Bye.”
She cut the call and tucked her phone away in a pocket. Her cheeks flushed when she glanced around and realised exactly how many people overheard her side of the call. The armoury was the most private place in the Resistance compound, and she was currently sharing it with three other guys who sniggered amongst themselves.
The armourer, one of Hawthorn’s men, looked up from his blanket of carefully-arranged suit parts and gave her a grin. “Anxious girlfriend?”
“You could say that.” She stifled a moan of pure despair.
“Don’t feel too bad, kid. It happens to the best of us. I got a girl back in Geneva, French, real nice. Great ass. Keeps saying she’ll dump me if I don’t settle down and start a family.”
“Doesn’t want you in danger, huh?”
“Yeah. She hates all this James Bond shit.”
“James what?”
“Never mind.” He went back to repairing his suit. “I just remind her that I’ve come back alive every time so far.”
Rat instinctively touched the spot on her belly where, some weeks ago, a bullet had gone in and out again. A temporary speed-bump to her faith in her own immortality. There wasn’t even a scar. It fucking hurt, though, and that was why she’d be taking precautions this time.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll come back alive.”
She threw her bulletproof vest over one shoulder and went out. The rest of the house was crawling with more Army dudes rushing to do their final prep. She weaved and dodged around them on her way to the van parked outside. It was big, black, and lined with well-hidden cooling vents. In the back, a military command centre complete with VR rig. It would be her place of residence until the Angel’s Sword was out of the picture.
She climbed in, shut the door behind her, and dropped into one of the harness chairs which kept people in place even when moving at speed. A VR crown and a pair of goggles fit snugly over her head. Then she was jacked in, catapulting through GlobeNet into the little gathering place Jock had set up. An empty white room full of nothing except Jock himself.
He crossed his arms as he looked at her. “Words cannot express how upset I am with you.”
“You’re not my father,” she pointed out. “You can’t always have everything your way, Jockey boy. Every now and again, what I want got to fit into the picture, yeah?”
He looked down, a little petulant, a little ashamed. He couldn’t think of anything else to say for himself before Harmony and Hideo appeared in the private box. There was no pretence this time. They wore their own skins and their own clothing, nothing more.
“So this is what it’s all been leading up to,” said Harmony. “Let’s make sure nothing goes wrong and we don’t accidentally info-nuke the entire world. Mr. Reynolds, it’s your show.”
Jock nodded thanks and gave the signal for his teams to begin.

***

From the outside, it looked like a simultaneous cascade of failures. The GlobeNet nodes in Beijing and Hohhot went offline in a storm of error reports. Before anyone could respond to the crisis, three more nodes stopped caring about the insistent requests of their users. Much of Mongolia and Northern China were wiped off the face of the network. Local systems strained as they shouldered the burden of keeping hospitals, police, government and emergency services running — and nothing else.
Alarms sounded at the offices of specialists everywhere, but of course most of those were in the Hacker Nations and part of the plan.
The five downed nodes created a buffer zone around the Sword’s location. Only one path remained open, through the overloaded node in Tongliao, which would become the battleground for one AI and hundreds — thousands — of fleshy hackers all over the world. They would fight to counter the Sword’s every move. An army of prima donnas who were determined to make this their moment of personal glory. It was like herding cats, and Jock only hoped he could keep them focussed long enough before they succumbed to the inevitable infighting and one-upmanship which exemplified the whole rotten society of the Nations.
All in all, both sides were pretty evenly matched.
“The Sword is sending out queries,” announced Jock’s watchdog program. “It is requesting information about the failures. Tongliao data flow has been crippled by redirected Chinese traffic and connections from Laputa, Europe, others.”
Jock nodded to himself. “Alright, I’m gonna put us through.”
Everyone held their breath. A small hourglass materialised in the air and turned itself in slow circles. Blinking letters above it spelled out the words, ‘Please Wait!’
Four pairs of eyes watched it go through a couple of revolutions. If Rat squinted, she could see each individual grain of sand tumbling from one end to the other. Even her own reflection stared back at her, realistically deformed by the curved glass. It was a shocking waste of processor cycles. It was just so useless, so superfluous, she couldn’t believe Jock ever spent time programming it.
Then again, he had been a rookie too. Much as he wanted everyone to believe he sprang into existence fully-formed with the sun shining out of his arse.
Her train of thought was cut short. The hourglass vanished from whence it came, the white room shimmered, and there was a feeling of movement that no human sense could explain. Then they were. . . somewhere. The ground shone blue, shot through with a grid of silver lines which pulsed like veins. A perfect flat plain all the way to the horizon. The sky was the pure black of infinity.
“Login accepted,” said Jock, triumphantly. Then he looked to Hideo, the only one who’d been here before. “Your turn.”
The ex-King brought his hands together over his head and drew a box in the air. It expanded into a simple rectangular door with a small unwritten label on the front. He flicked the label to the side, but rather than removing it, words slid sideways onto the paper. He went through several options before arriving at ‘System.’
Turning the handle, he opened the door and waved everyone through.
They arrived in a control room of sorts: A black expanse with a square, featureless countertop about three feet off the ground, outlined in blue wireframe. There was no visible way of interfacing with it, until Hideo walked up to the counter and a workstation sprang into being before him. Everyone else followed his example. Rat placed her hands on the smooth surface and watched three screens pop up around her head. Her fingers found the tactile shape of a keyboard. No time had been wasted on making the controls user-friendly. This was old-school.
“There’s an admin backdoor,” said Hideo, “although I can’t be sure Gabriel hasn’t already patched it. I’m going to give it a try.”
Harmony nodded. “Roger. Jock, Alex, you take the other objectives. You know what to do.”
Rat started to sift through the local networks to narrow down the address, while Jock pulled up a list of all the software running on the big bank of machines which powered the Sword. A vulnerable package or two, but nothing they could really use for more than just general mischief. The Sword kept very up-to-date.
Rat had a bit more luck. She found the company which supplied parts and maintenance for the mainframe, and despite their promises of total security, it was a simple thing to break the shipping address out of their receipts. Then she double-checked. The location was at least a hundred miles away from the GlobeNet node. Definitely fake. She sighed, threw it out, and started again.
Then Hideo’s backdoor login went through, and everything went to Hell in a handbasket.

***

Gina looked up. Something broke her concentration. For a second she watched from two pairs of eyes at once, and she hurried to shake it off. Dizzy and disoriented, she forced herself to stare out of the window until the nausea went away.
The world outside the Land Rover was rough and rugged, and even state-of-the-art shocks couldn’t absorb the constant battering of the Appalachian landscape. There was a valley carpeted in crab grass, slowly regaining its fertility after years of fallout, elevated UV levels and acid rain. It bathed in the noonday sun, bleached by the harsh, unfiltered light.
They were tracking up abandoned roads as broken as the natural rock, through mountains so majestic it made Gina want to start writing poetry. The land scarred but not defeated. She could even feel the faintest currents of thought in all this empty space, of small game reestablishing a foothold. In that respect it was nothing like the dead, apocalyptic wasteland of New Orleans. The fallout storms she’d seen there mostly confined themselves to the lowlands.
She didn’t want to go there. Part of her was still rebelling at the idea of taking her unborn child into Radiation Alley at all, but she didn’t really have a choice in the matter. She just had to trust the rad shielding and–There it is again, she thought, and glanced around the cabin out of instinct, searching for the source of the strange distraction. She knew full well it wasn’t inside the Land Rover. It was just. . . Every now and then she could feel something on the very edge of her telepathic perception, like a distant, half-heard sound, or an itch that went away as soon as she thought about it. Something alive. Not an animal, either. Nothing so simple would make itself felt from so far away.
There was only one possible explanation, and it made her heart skip a beat. Gabriel or Bomber, it didn’t matter. Wherever she found one she would probably find the other. They were like two trains running in opposite directions on the same track. She just had to move towards the fireball.
“Turn left,” she told Henry, and he spun the wheel as requested. “Not that much. A little to the right. There, keep going.”
Henry nodded. “You’re the boss.”
“Where are we headed now?”
“Middle of nowhere, North Carolina. Nothing nearby worth mentioning.”
Gina pondered that. A stray memory came back to her, flaring up from some dusty, disused corner of her brain. Bomber’s old base, when he used to be in Colonel Obrin’s special super-soldier program, was located at Quantico. Not so far away. If that was a coincidence then Gina Hart was a virgin, complete with immaculate conception.
And they thought she’d be led by the nose all the way back to Jericho!
She cleared her throat and looked at Hawthorn. He stared back. They communicated without the need for telepathy; he trusted Henry about as much as she did.
Taking a deep breath, she shut her eyes and reassembled her concentration piece by piece. She had to know what was going on in the City. She had to know if there was still anything left to fight for.

Bomber didn’t know much. Even his name got fuzzy at times. There was only one thought which provoked no doubt in him: He was on the hunt. If anyone had stopped to ask, he probably wouldn’t have been able to say what, or why. Luckily no one did. He just knew where he was going on a level beyond rational thought. Nothing so primitive as instinct. Nothing so unsophisticated. It was a higher state, where his existence narrowed to a pinpoint and everything else seemed unreal, out of focus, passing through him like ghosts without provoking a moment’s hesitation.
He was thirsty, and hungry, and tired, and none of those things mattered. He was an avatar of vengeance. A machine fit for only one purpose. Once that purpose was carried out, it would be the end of all things. He’d shut down, go black, and stay that way.
For Sweeney. For Fahlan. For Cornell. For Frost and Dietrich and Harper. For dead men, dead women, innocents and sinners. Human beings who — like Bomber — could no longer remember who they were.
It was enough to move a man to tears, but he was a machine. He had spent a dozen years trying not to feel and he’d finally succeeded.
Sitting on a dry, flat floor, he laid all the parts of his arms out onto a blanket and began to fit them back together with the patient precision of a watchmaker.
“Gina,” said a voice, and the vision flew away like smoke.
She looked around like a startled deer and realised she’d kicked herself awake. The sheets were tangled around her ankles. Muttering, she looked at the clock, and saw it was four in the morning. She’d slept for three hours. Maybe less.
Her bare toes touched the carpet. Brushed through it on her way to the kitchen. She said, “Coffee,” and one of the machines spat out a little styrofoam cup. She picked it up, tasted it, made a face and put it back. “Jesus. Sugar.”
The machine buzzed, stirred white powder into the inky liquid and fell silent. It left Gina alone with nothing but the faint hum of the air-conditioner.
On the other side of her window, Laputa was a mass of activity and neon light, regardless of the time of day. A little City in itself. She looked out over a huge, shiny plaza of shops and restaurants. Many places never closed. Robot-operated franchises, catering to hackers and other types who never slept when a handful of stims would do. A careful Laputan never had to interact with another living soul if he didn’t want to. Just avatars on the ‘Net.
The coffee nursed away some of her fuzziness and the insomniac headache. Then she looked down into the half-full cup and remembered her checklist of things a pregnant woman ought to avoid. Her medical implant would filter everything out before it reached the baby — caffeine, nicotine and alcohol were at the top of its hit-list — but you were supposed to avoid any unnecessary wear and tear.
She took a deep sniff of aromatic steam, went back to the kitchen, and poured the rest of her cup down the drain.
“How about some water?” she asked her belly. She drank some without waiting for an answer.
It was so peaceful here . . . It made all her anger and regret fade into the background. For the first time in God only knew how long, she was a little bit happy. Wondering about her future. She didn’t think she was cut out to be a mother, but maybe she could give it a try.
She sat and watched the Laputan morning come to life. The hall lights became brighter to match the sky outside. Groggy people filed out into the streets on their way to work. Weird, how something so simple could be so comforting. No matter what happened in the world, people would get up in the morning and go to work.
Unless somebody detonated the info-bomb. She shuddered, and for a moment her artifact — the ruined city, forever burnt, sagging like half-melted tar — flashed through her mind. Would that be the result? Famine, chaos, anarchy and death on a scale she couldn’t begin to comprehend?
The hackers might be able to clean up the mess, but not before half the world ripped itself apart.
Maybe this delay in Laputa was for the best. Stopping the apocalypse of the twenty-first century was a cause Gina could get behind. If the plan worked. That part was all up to the hackers. She’d be fighting her own battles with Gabriel in person, halfway across the world.
Tomorrow. An ending, at last.
She watched the plaza for hours, until the telephone buzzed. A message giving her the time of the helicopter pick-up. She showered, dressed, made herself up, and went to the pad to wait.
Hawthorn was there. They didn’t need words, nor even telepathy. This would be their last day in Laputa, no matter what. The unspoken agreement hung heavy in the air between them.
The copter barely took time to land before it lifted off again. Gina strapped herself in and watched the colossal steel city recede below her.

***

The trip into Cloud City was as dizzying as ever. Gusts of tropical wind buffeted the helicopter from all sides. A small rainstorm washed the windows, and remained a big black blanket thrown over the world when they finally rose above it.
Arriving at the castle, a chamberlain greeted Gina and Hawthorn by name. She led them to a large central room off the main courtyard. It was a kind of medieval banquet hall, furnished with sumptuous wood, brass, and natural cloth in every colour of the rainbow. Expensive banners and tapestries almost rained from the walls. The only synthetic fibres in the room were being worn by the guests.
Gina couldn’t begin to guess who they all were. Dignitaries from other Nations, now largely unsure of their own status and influence. A couple of familiar faces out of Banshee’s group, first glimpsed through Rat’s eyes. Even — something of a shock — Harmony’s second-in-command, Karen. The statuesque blonde cut a very different figure out of her prison jumpsuit. The formal jacket and trousers fit her well, and were only slightly too thick to be normal clothing. She was clearly in charge of Harmony’s own security detail.
A hologram projector in the ceiling threw a huge bank of screens against the north wall, each one showing a different camera feed from somewhere in Laputa. Gina guessed its purpose without even trying. The cameras were part of Laputa’s public address system, hooked into everything from bank machines to electronic billboards. They were there to measure audience reaction.
The room narrowed at that end, and the floor raised up a few steps to become a modest stage. It looked like something big was going to be made public, but the guests had no idea what was coming.
“This looks awfully slick,” Gina said. “Did he throw it all together on a day’s notice?”
Hawthorn shrugged. “He’s the King.”
Gina smirked and put it out of her head. She looked for Rat in the crowd, but found only Jock, taking care of tech stuff for the stage performance. Reluctantly she went to talk to him.
“Oh, Gina,” he said when he noticed her. He was annoyed at the interruption, but determined to be polite. “Something I can do for you?”
She leaned against a pillar and crossed her arms under her breasts. “Just wondering what’s going on. Your boss is a little light on the briefings.”
“Sorry,” he gave a guileless look of apology, “I probably don’t know much more than you do. I think he wants it to be a surprise.”
“You think surprises are a good idea in a situation this tense?”
“It’s his show,” he said. Shrugged. “I’m willing to let him do it however he likes. God knows I’d wanna go out on a high after ruling a country for four years.”
“Okay, Jock. Forget I said anything. I’m just remembering how his last surprise party turned out.”
Both his eyebrows shot up, surprised and horrified at the accusation. “How . . . How do you know about that?”
“Telepath,” she reminded him, tapping the side of her head, and walked away.
She found herself a corner from which to observe and brood. She didn’t know why she was so on edge. Absorbing the thoughts and emotions of the room, she didn’t sense a single bad intention. Nothing beyond Karen’s passing temptation to strangle Hideo with her bare hands.
And yet. Something kept nagging at her, expecting all Hell to break loose any second.
Hawthorn came to join her, going over the security plans in his head. He muttered occasional adjustments into the microphone under his collar. “Our VIPs are about to arrive,” he told her. “Keep your eyes on the entourage. All three of ’em.”
“Major,” she laughed, “I didn’t know you shared Bomber’s sense of humour.”
“I didn’t know he had one.”
“My point exactly.”
She smiled, and Hawthorn bowed his head to concede the point. “Ouch,” he said. “Look, you know what to do. Tap this and it’ll give you radio straight to me. I want to know everything at the first sign of trouble.” He took a tiny black circle, barely half the size of his fingertip, and attached it under the lapel of her suit.
He went and parked himself somewhere else, while a brief musical note drew the guests to attention. It wasn’t the blast of brassy trumpets Gina had expected, but a simple, understated tickling of strings. Conversations faltered and died. Every eye turned to the great doors. Artificial sunlight flooded in through the opening, and two long shadows touched the red carpet down the middle of the chamber. Harmony and Hideo, entering side by side.
A hush came over the crowd. It was a moment of mythical proportions, Razorblade herself standing before them.
The King of Laputa glittered with reflected light, dressed in his royal suit of armour and polished to a mirror shine. The crown on his head was every bit as bright, white gold and inlaid with a hundred precious gems. Harmony wore a combination of leggings, skirt and blazer, all different shades of blue, hugging and highlighting her curves without giving the eye an opportunity to fetishise them.
A small crowd of supporters and hangers-on followed them in. On Hideo’s side was a large chunk of the Laputan cabinet. Tailored business suits styled in all the clichés of hacker chic. One seemed to be made of woven chrome. Another green and silver, printed like an old circuit board. A third was plain black except for an animated necktie which scrolled continuously through the endless digits of pi.
A bare handful of people followed Harmony. Several women from her resistance cell and a couple of Irish dignitaries, previously Banshee’s boys. Karen came and fell in step with them. They all wore low-profile body armour as if ready for a fight.
The procession stopped in the middle of the hall. Grinning, Hideo raised his hands and let his amplified voice boom out of every speaker in the room. “People of Laputa,” he called out, “we come to bring you a message of peace and reunification on this historic day. Rejoice! I present to you, your Queen!”
He took Harmony’s hand and bowed low to her. She stared at him, a little unsure of herself, blushing from all the pomp and circumstance. Then, everywhere around the room, people began to sink to one knee. Soon the whole crowd was down, dozens of people, even Gina. Caught up in the moment.
All the public screens in the Nation blazed to life, and dozens of people become hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Many didn’t grasp the full significance of it, not yet. But those who were quicker on the uptake knew that their world had changed forever.

***

After that first moment of yawning silence, when everyone was still too shocked to make a sound, things began to take on a life of their own. Someone recovered from the surprise and began to applaud. The next moment everybody was doing it, all over Laputa, until the castle shook from the sound of clapping hands and cheering voices.
Eventually Hideo motioned for quiet. There were more words left to be said. Escorting Harmony onto the stage, he turned with a flourish and raised his arms.
“Though I’ve called you here,” he said gravely, “to witness the crowning of Harmony Kohler, once known to you as ‘Razorblade’, I’m sad to say that this is not a wedding. Laputa has only one ruler. Consider this my formal abdication from the throne.”
The crowds hung on his every word. Even Gina’s well-trained cynicism couldn’t resist the pull of the moment, anxious to hear more even though she knew what was coming.
A man in white ceremonial robes ascended the stage. In his hands he held a scroll of heavy parchment, wrapped around tubes of solid bronze. He stopped in front of the happy couple and unrolled it between his outstretched hands.
Hideo continued, “This document transfers my station, with all its powers and responsibilities, to Harmony. I would like you all to bear witness to its signing.” He flashed a winning smile. “Though I will no longer be your King, I will continue to serve you all as Executor of the Integration Act, charged with the protection of our great Nations from anyone who would threaten our way of life. Some people are already calling me ‘Lord Protector’ of the Nations. To these people I’d just like to say . . . I’ll do my best.”
A ripple of appreciative laughter went around the room. Hideo gave the stage to Harmony in a sweeping gesture, and she stepped up to begin a speech of her own.
Something brought Gina’s mind to a screeching halt. Everything wound down until she couldn’t speak, breathe, think. The room flashed into stark relief, more real than it was before, as she tasted the thoughts of a man with a smuggled weapon in his hands and a mind stained with blood.
He’d come from Harmony’s contingent. An Irishman. Pushing forward through rows of confused bodies, slipping a stealthy, fin-shaped dart gun from his waistband. All sorts of considerations blasted through Gina’s head at light-speed. How had she not noticed him before? Did she let herself get too distracted? Her hand went to the radio at her lapel, but in the heat of the moment she forgot how to use it. Instead she grabbed Hawthorn by the base of the spine and shouted, Gun!
The Major jolted into action. So did a few of the Laputan Guardsmen, muttering into radios, drawing pistols. They couldn’t get a shot. Too many people in the way. There was nothing anybody could do, least of all Gina, as the man turned a tiny black barrel on the King.
There was an earth-shattering click as the trigger pulled back. A pinging noise, a ricochet, as the first of the darts bounced off that exquisite steel armour. Hideo, eyes wide, reached for the shooter’s wrist.
Ping! Another dart spun away into the crowd. Steel gauntlets closed on the man’s arm, wrestling for control. The trigger snapped three more times before its magazine was empty.
When Hideo pushed the shooter backwards, clubbing him over the head with a heavy fist, he looked around to see if anybody was hurt.
Some of the bystanders were bloody with fragments. Harmony Kohler lay on the stone floor of the stage, a hole clear through her head.
Everyone finally had time to panic, and all Hell broke loose in the banqueting hall. A herd of terrified, screaming animals stampeded toward the gates, trampling bodies underfoot. Karen and Rat ran in the opposite direction. They vaulted onto the stage to help their friend, but at this point all they could do was grieve.
Hideo stood over her bleeding body, his face a grim mask. “Cut cameras.”
Gina stumbled, gasped. All the breath rushed out of her like a savage gut-punch. The world went sideways, and suddenly her eyes opened to the sound of Hideo’s speech from minutes ago. She looked around in confusion while Hawthorn appeared at her shoulder, reaching out to steady her.
Harmony Kohler stood alive and well at Hideo’s side.
“Gina,” the Major said, “what’s wrong?”
She only had time to blink before she saw the assassin mount the stage, drawing his weapon. This time she didn’t even think about using her radio. She lashed out in a combination of panic and raw anger, coiling her will around the man’s brainstem. Holding nothing back, she ripped into his motor functions and made him stop.
A living statue stood on the stage in front of the King and Queen of Laputa. The tiny dart gun hung in his frozen fingers. Hideo was all set to receive him, and didn’t know what to do when the expected charge failed to materialise. Harmony just gaped. So did the rest of the audience.
Even the Royal Guard was taken aback. They stopped short, held by deep, nameless superstitions. No one wanted to be the first to touch him.
They watched as Gina came forward and pried the gun out of the assassin’s unresisting hand. She tucked it into a pocket of her suit, turned a thin smile on Hideo and said, “You can thank me later. Maybe a knighthood or something.”
At a flick of her wrist, the man crumpled like a wet rag, and she walked out of the hall while people did their best to pick up the ceremony’s shattered pieces.

***

Gina spent the next three hours on a bench in one of the castle’s secluded spots, trying to reconstruct things in her mind. Searching for an answer about what had happened to her. If only she worked at it long enough, she felt like it would start making sense.
She remembered the flash. Some kind of vision, obviously, but unlike anything she’d experienced before. Telepathy was one thing. This had been more like seeing the future, which went so far beyond reason that she started to convince herself she’d imagined the whole thing.
Three hours got her nowhere. She went to Rat’s room to get a second opinion, but found only Jock, locked in the embrace of his VR rig. He looked up when he heard the door and switched his goggles to clear for half a second.
“Oh,” he said, “Gina.”
“You always seem surprised to see me, Jock,” she replied. Glanced around to make sure Rat wasn’t just hiding somewhere. No luck, just the tedious fucker in the ridiculous outfit.
“Lex is with Harmony, if you’re wondering.” His voice turned far away again as he went back to work. Dangling in his straps, making weird movements that apparently did something in VR. “I just got away from the festivities. Wanted to review our close call on camera. You really did a number on him, by the way. They’re not sure if he’ll ever speak again, much less walk.”
“I don’t care, Jock. I genuinely do not care.” She turned away and bit her lip. She used to be better at lying. “See anything interesting in your recordings?”
“Not a lot. You just get this really far-away look for a second, then you point at him as he’s jumping and he fucking turns to stone! As a heads-up, that went out on millions of screens all over the Nations. By tomorrow morning you’re gonna be the next GlobeNet star.”
She ignored the comment. Then again, celebrity might be a nice change of pace from being on the bottom rung. She said, “What happened after I left?”
Another set of convulsive hand gestures caused the screens around the room to spring to life. It showed a time-lapse version of events, sped up to compress hours into minutes. “See for yourself. The Guard carries our friend away. Harmony sends her Irish contingent packing, then takes her oath as Queen. Hideo stands around looking rattled. Really,” he sighed, tired and frustrated, “nothing that explains how the guy smuggled a gun past security, or why. I know there’s some bad blood over Banshee but I never expected anybody to try and kill Hideo.”
“Somebody did. It almost worked.”
“Yeah. Almost.” He took his goggles off and rubbed his eyes to relax them. “I’m surprised you aren’t down in the pen working some magic on our prisoner.”
“I got an invitation, but I didn’t go. I’m supposed to ship out in a couple hours anyway.”
“Mm. Well . . . I’m glad you were here, Gina. Things would’ve gone a lot different without you.”
“Too right.”
Gina watched the feed for a bit. The same events repeating over and over from a dozen different angles. They started to mesh with her memory of what happened, bleeding together with the glimpsed future-that-never-was. It made her head spin. Dizzy, she caught herself on the back of a chair before she could fall down. The spinning sensation passed but the nausea stuck around. She leaned heavily against the chair and avoided the screens while she recovered.
“Hey, you don’t look so good.” Jock sounded vaguely concerned. “Something wrong?”
She didn’t want to talk about it. Not with Jock. On the other hand, she couldn’t keep it inside much longer before it ripped itself from her throat. She had to let it out or she’d go insane.
“You said I got a far-away look,” she forced out. “There’s a reason. I didn’t read his mind. I couldn’t, I was distracted, and I’m positive the guy’s had avoidance training. I saw him pull his weapon and fire.”
Jock pursed his lips in confusion, didn’t understand a word she was saying. “Eh?”
“Listen to the words out of my mouth! I saw! Like a vision or something, I don’t know. I watched the guy come forward and wrestle with Hideo. His gun went off, but the darts couldn’t punch through that cooking pot Hideo was walking around in. One of the stray shots hit Harmony. Killed her instantly. I saw her oozing blood on the floor. That’s how I knew what he was gonna do before he did it.”
“That’s not what I remember happening,” he said, almost making it a question.
“No, Jock, it isn’t,” she growled, “because I stopped it from happening. Are you starting to get me yet?”
The pieces finally clicked into place behind his eyes. He entertained her line of reasoning only in the most tentative sort of way. “Are you telling me,” he hesitated, choosing his words carefully, “that you can see the future?”
“I can’t now. I could then.”
“How?”
“Tell me how my telepathy works and I’ll give you an answer to that question.”
“I see your point. It’s not that I don’t believe you.” He took a deep breath, and by his secret thoughts, not believing her was exactly what ‘it’ was. Lying little shit. “It’s just, if it were anyone else making claims like that–“
“It’s not anyone else, it’s me,” she said sharply. “You’re watching me right now, on those cameras, ripping out a man’s ability to move for the rest of his life. Think about that. Then let me know if you still want to tell me what I can and can’t do.”
For once, he didn’t have a rejoinder ready to fire. He didn’t respond at all. He was watching the feeds on repeat, the assassin pulling his gun and vaulting onto the stage. Doing it again and again in an endless loop. Forcing a calm, steady voice, he said, “In your vision, Harmony got killed, but Hideo was fine.”
“Um. Yeah. What does it matter?”
“Everything,” whispered Jock. A wave of awful, icy uncertainty rippled out from him. Gina was about to break the heavy silence, to press him for an explanation, when he spoke again. “I don’t think Hideo was the target.”
Without another word he unstrapped himself, threw on some clothes and grabbed her arm. Pulling her out the door. She could’ve overpowered him if it came to that, outmassing him by at least thirty pounds, but she was too shocked to fight back.
“What the Hell?” she cried. “Jock, where are you going?”
He set his jaw and took her into the elevator down the hall, furiously punching buttons. “Downstairs. I need you to talk to someone who can’t speak for himself.”

***

The door to the penitentiary opened at a wave of Jock’s magic card-key. The sergeant on watch, and the extra detachment of battle-armoured Guards, snapped to attention as they spotted Jock and Gina. Six arms saluted as the pair came up to the reception desk, partitioned off behind a wall of bulletproof glass. The only entrance was by a heavy steel door on the left.
As Gina came into the room, the thoughts of the men and women around her began to sink in, along with a startling realisation. They weren’t saluting Jock. She gave a nervous smile, unsure of how to respond.
“Here to see the prisoner,” said Jock. Nobody had to ask which one.
The sergeant pressed a button. One by one, the immense locks and deadbolts on the door snapped open. Gina and Jock were escorted through, into long, sterile white halls lined by cells which gave no clue what went on behind them. Only a few faltering thoughts told her that any of them were occupied. At length they reached a room with a one-way window. A Guard medic was doing her best to give a physical examination to a man who couldn’t even respond to her by blinking. Helpless tears streaked down his cheeks. Really, he ought to feel lucky he still had the wherewithal to breathe.
“I don’t understand what you’re hoping to get,” said Gina. She really didn’t want to have to read Jock’s mind for an explanation. “There’s other telepaths around, you know. I’m sure they already interviewed him.”
“Bear with me, Gina. Please.”
That was an unusual word out of Jock. She didn’t know why she was here, she didn’t owe him any favours, but she got caught up in his emotional state. He clearly thought this was important. She sighed and began to clear her own head in anticipation.
She said, “Fine. I’ll need someone on the inside to prompt him.”
“I can do that.”
“This would be easier if I knew what you were after, Jock.”
“Just get his version of events. Start with how he smuggled a weapon onto Cloud City, and why.”
He squared his shoulders and marched into the interrogation room. The medic looked up, surprised, and insisted on applying some more eye-drops before she let him evict her. Then it was just man-to-statue, the assassin in a chair, Jock seated casually on the table like in a bad cop vid. Gina closed her eyes and let herself step out of her body. She touched the ball of nervous terror that used to be a human being and steeled herself, refused to let it overwhelm her. She pushed his fear down, willed an island of calm into it. Then she let the images come.
“Let’s take it from the top,” Jock said. “Where did you get the gun?”
Long hours of telepathy avoidance training came to the fore, an automatic reflex to stop the immediate, unconscious access of relevant memory. His brain had been conditioned not to follow those questions to their destination. However, they hadn’t invented the kind of avoidance that could protect against Gina Hart in full control of her powers. She forced the image of the dart gun back into his mind’s eye and followed the trail of neurons that flowed from it, into his memories.
A Laputan back alley. A man in a long coat. Hands exchanging a credit chip for a handful of steel darts. A helipad on Cloud City. Rubbish bin along the path of Harmony’s procession. Nonchalant disposal of a gum wrapper. Gun taped under the lid. Practised sleight of hand slipping it into his sleeve.
“Why did you try to kill him?”
This time she shut down the avoidance response immediately. Flash to Banshee’s face, to Kensei’s. Surging emotions of rage, wrath, the blind need for revenge. Predictable as a metronome.
“What would have happened if we hadn’t stopped you?”
An image that made Gina swallow bile. Hideo Kagehisa on the floor with his brain blown open, the assassin standing over him, triumphant. She realised she didn’t even know his name, and had no desire at all to find out.
“Wonderful. Thanks for your help, I’ll be right back.” Jock left the room, taking care to shut the door behind him, and looked Gina in the eye. “Anything?”
She shrugged. “Lone gunman. Revenge hit. Exactly as expected.”
“I figured as much. Now we’re gonna do the same thing, except I want you to look for deep hypnotic suggestions. Memory blocks. Anything that suggests he was altered. You can do that, right?”
“Um. Sure, but why? He doesn’t show any of the symptoms. He’s lucid, not confused. He seems to know what he’s done, and he’s rationally afraid of the consequences. That’s not the mental state of someone who’s been conditioned.”
“No, you’re absolutely right, Gina. I’ll be very happy if you tell me I’m wrong.”
Then the penny dropped, and she understood the reason for Jock’s whole charade. “You think it was a con! You think someone set us up, and Harmony was the real victim all along.”
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said again, almost pleading. “Look into his brain and tell me. All the evidence we’ve got is in that chair.”
She put up a hand to quiet him. Pointing, she grabbed him by the shoulders and made him look through the two-way mirror. Inside, the assassin spasmed violently on the floor, frothing at the mouth as time-release poison capsules burst in his stomach. Jock could only stare in impotent horror.
Gina had seconds. Maybe less. She planted her feet, breathed, stepped out of herself again — and crashed headlong into the dying man’s mind.

***

She was doing something stupid. So very, very stupid. This was exactly the kind of business that turned telepaths into drooling, senseless vegetables for the rest of their lives.
But if Jock was right . . .
She tore through what was left of the man’s brain, a mass of randomly-firing neurons, like a power surge in an electric plant. A billion city lights flickering on and off every nanosecond. Feverish torrents of fear, doubt, and desperate prayer buffeted her from all sides. The door to his memory was wide open, and out of it came a tidal wave of information, every moment of his life flashing before tear-filled eyes. Too much for anyone to take.
Gina stood her ground, driven by sheer bull-headed determination. She let it wash over her, absorbing in moments what amounted to a whole other lifetime.
Belfast. She was a child. She ran, and played, and laughed. She fought, and hurt, and cried. She jolted from memory to memory, isolated shreds and highlights. Favourite toys. Birthdays. Communion. Punishments and humiliations. The time when she watched her school blossom into a sea of beautiful flames. The time when soldiers marched into her neighbourhood making lots of loud noises and her mother told her to hide in the loft. That night, and every night after it, Daddy didn’t come home.
There were flashes of her older brother. Sounds of arguing. He took her to one side and explained he was going away. Something he had to do. It was about freedom and justice. Mother wouldn’t understand.
She never saw him again.
She grew up. Started going to meetings. She met two guys who went only by their codenames. They got her into the organisation. She learned how to handle a gun as well as a VR rig. How to make bombs, and how to make her voice heard in a political system that did everything in its power to hold her down. Together with her friends, she saw the revolution coming, and she helped to change things.
Gina’s head spun from the continuous onslaught. Her brain felt like it was going to explode. She tried to shield herself, to block out more of the irrelevant memories, but they came faster and faster with the beat of his racing heart, pounding like a jackhammer. It was only a matter of time before it lost its rhythm. It faltered, convulsed, then stopped beating altogether.
There was triumph, and cheering, and dancing in the streets–
Official meetings, security arrangements, hard work–
Machine gun fire churning through bodies–
Bitter rage in Kensei’s voice–
Whispers from a white ceiling–
Steel darts clenched in an outstretched hand, and a note pointing to a public rubbish bin on Cloud City, seen through a grey haze like TV static. Gina stopped it. Forced away the unnatural mess. The hand reappeared, barest hint of a Laputan military tattoo on a shadowed wrist.
Darkness. Cold. Gina screamed and recoiled like a wounded animal, but it held her, as irrevocable as the event horizon of a black hole. It was like an immense weight piled on top of her shoulders and on her chest at once, squeezing the life from her. She couldn’t tear away, couldn’t even avert her eyes as she stared into the abyss. Icy sweat prickled at the back of her neck. She was afraid not because it was horrible, but because it felt so safe. So utterly at peace. All she had to do was lay down her burdens and go.
Like she could’ve surrendered to Gabriel that first time, and never opened her eyes at all.
But she wanted more. She was Gina Hart now, and Gina Hart had things to live for. One of them was there with her, inside her, still waiting to be born.
A sudden blur of motion. Her mind snapped back like a rubber band. When she opened her eyes again, she was in her own body, still looking through the two-way mirror. The assassin’s body was gone. Jock leaned against the wall, worried. Rat stood next to him with their fingers intertwined. The Guard medic from before was conducting an examination. She jumped back in surprise when Gina flexed her fingers.
“Ow,” said Gina. Her muscles ached as if she’d overworked every single one of them. “What’s going on?”
Rat practically jumped forward, her face a mask of intense relief. She took Gina’s hands and squeezed them. “Gina! Are you okay?”
“Um. Yeah. Where did you come from?”
“I’ve been here for two hours. Get me? You went away for a while, and we were too scared to move you.”
“I was . . .” She glanced at the empty space where the assassin had been. Then she noticed Jock looking her full in the eye, and she offered him a grim smile.
“Was I wrong?” he asked.
“No, Jock. You weren’t.”
He came away from the wall and sent a far-away look down the corridor. “Then we have some business to take care of.”
“Yes,” she acceded, “we do.”

***

Gina and Jock left the penitentiary together, moved by grim purpose. They were going to find the former King of Laputa and confront him for an alibi. Rat followed close on their heels, threw a constant barrage of questions, and ignored Jock’s persistent pleas for her to go away. She didn’t understand what was going on. She didn’t know why she shouldn’t be involved, and she hated being left out of the loop. It made her feel like a little kid who wasn’t invited to grown-up discussions.
“Hold it!” she snapped, and grabbed the elevator door to stop it from closing. Wedging her foot in to make sure. “I’m as much part of this team as anybody, I have a right to know!”
Jock shot back, “Jesus Christ, woman. How many times do I have to tell you no before you get it through your head?”
“Go fuck a tree, monk–“
The tirade stopped dead in its tracks when Gina placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Alex,” she said softly, “you can’t come with us. The less you know, the better. Right now we need you to go back to Harmony and keep her safe. And whatever you do, don’t tell her about any of this, okay?” She took a deep breath. “I trust you. Please, trust me too.”
Indecision flickered in Rat’s eyes. Then, looking down in defeat, she stepped out of the way. The door slid shut without a noise.
From here it was a straight shot up to the throne room. That was where Hideo ought to be, packing his things and getting ready to move out. Jock kept his fists clenched. Gina sucked on her teeth to distract herself from the mounting tension.
Jock cleared his throat. “Did you get any proof?”
“Nothing that would stand up in a courtroom.”
“I still have trouble believing Hideo would go this far. You know what would’ve happened . . . No Harmony. No alliance. No attack on Gabriel. Everything we planned would’ve fallen apart.”
“He probably believed he was doing the right thing.”
“I guess I don’t know him anymore.” He looked smaller, diminished somehow. “This place, being a King, changed him. I thought. . . Hoped I could turn back the clock and make him remember who he used to be.”
“Maybe he really likes having his own airship.”
“Gina, if it, um, if it comes to–“
“I’ll take care of it,” she said, more harshly than she intended. “I don’t like being duped.”
“No, I meant . . .” He swallowed. “Don’t turn him into a vegetable. Please.”
She bit back a hot retort. As if that was all she ever did! And now it would be the only thing anyone knew her for.
The great iron-bound doors swam into view, wreathed in artificial mist, and–
In a flash the whole room became more real, more vibrant, as if through a high contrast filter. There was a sick sense of motion. Dimly, Gina realised she was watching the future again, walking past the opulent table and throne. Sensing thoughts and emotions that brought her to a dead stop. Something awful was happening in the King of Laputa’s office.
She began to run, leaving Jock behind in the confusion. Her viewpoint bounced up and down, driven by dread and uncertainty. Would she be too late? She put her shoulder against the big door and pushed.
Just in time to hear a soft puff, and the slump of Hideo Kagehisa’s body against his desk. He sat in the room’s only chair. His eyes were open, staring blankly into the middle distance from the surface of the sweeping steel arc that was his workspace. There was a note in his hand with spatters of blood dripping down the laminated, digital surface.
She turned away and shut her eyes. Choking up. She bit back a tear as she stopped Jock from going in. She was going to be sick.
A sudden touch jarred her out of it, back to the present. Jock came in front of her, worry in his eyes. “Gina?” he asked, his voice far-away, echoing faintly in her ears. “Are you okay?”
She broke for the office at a dead sprint, and slid inside just as her vision was being repeated. Hideo sat at his desk, reading the note in his hand, his face scrunched up in confusion. In his other was a pistol. His head jerked up as Gina burst into the room. Then he yelped as she grabbed his mind by the short and curlies and made him leap out of his chair.
A long, thin bullet passed through the huge wall-window with a soft puff. It split into a hundred jagged, tumbling bits. The rain of shrapnel buried itself in the desk where Hideo’s head had been. Gina rushed to the window and swept her mind out like the beam of a lighthouse, searching for the shooter. A telltale ripple of thought in one of the other buildings gave it away. Out there, through the scope of a heavy sniper rifle, Karen stared back at her.
Hideo picked himself up just high enough to see the black furrows ripped into his heavy steel swoosh. Then he looked at the paper in his hand, and at Gina, his eyes wide as dinner plates.
“It’s a suicide note,” he said shakily. “I didn’t write it.”
Gina let out a weary, soul-deep sigh while Karen packed up her rifle and made herself scarce. She said, “I am so fucking sick of you people.”
He stood there, staring slack-jawed. He didn’t need to speak to show he didn’t understand.
“Figure it out,” she snarled. Washing her hands of Laputa and every fucker in it. “I have a plane to catch.”